The NXP Cup: More Than a Competition – A Team Journey with a Lasting Impact

Every year, more than 300 students across EMEA register for the NXP Cup . This competition, consisting of rounds of qualifications and one final event, gives students the opportunity to improve their engineering skills, grow their team spirit and be part of a great journey. It’s always amazing to see new teams enroll in the NXP Cup and witness students improve year after year—almost touching perfection. To learn more about teams’ experiences, feelings and their global perspective we interviewed “ASE/Alpha”, participating from The Netherlands, who won the NXP Cup 2024 after first joining the NXP Cup in 2020.

NXP: Could you describe the NXP Cup in one sentence?

ASE/Alpha: An exciting race that puts months of hard work on the table.

NXP: What strategies did you develop this year to win the NXP Cup 2024?

ASE/Alpha: One of the most important strategies we kept in mind this year was to make sure that software and hardware were always working correctly, especially during the experimentation phase. When trying to make the car go faster and faster, one can easily lose track of stability and making sure all components of the system work as expected. To make sure that we were continuously checking the system, we developed a tool that allowed us to visualize all data from the car in real time as it drives.

NXP: Can you tell us more about your way of working and how you split the work between team members?

ASE/Alpha: We roughly divided it into two halves: software and hardware. However, when it comes to tuning the car and making it as fast as possible it’s largely a uniform effort.

NXP: Why did you decide to participate in the NXP Cup?

ASE/Alpha: Since the NXP Cup gives you the freedom to make everything from scratch, it was a motivating way to make something from the ground up. Furthermore, an autonomous vehicle embodies lots of the theory we have been learning at university and putting that into practice was incredibly valuable.

This season was again a success, our profound goal is to give students the opportunity to be part of a memorable journey in which they can grow, develop their technical as well as soft skills. The NXP Cup is a long term project for students and we are always amazed to see them growing season after season. This season can be now close with this testimony from a student “The time we shared together holds an important place in my memories because it allowed me to meet extraordinary individuals like yourself and gain invaluable insights from each of you, which will powerfully impact my future development.” Let’s make the NXP Cup 2025 even more memorable.

Learn more about the NXP Cup at nxpcup.nxp.com/ .

Authors

Garance Aubert-Mazenq

Garance is Project Manager Experience at NXP and holds a Master’s degree in Marketing and Innovation. She works in NXP’s Experience team and co-leads the NXP Cup challenge. Her role is to bring new ideas and innovations that can enhance and improve the physical and digital experience.

Matthias Wilkens

Matthias is responsible for global university programs. Particularly Matthias is managing the HoverGames, North American EcoCar challenge and the EMEA NXP Cup.